Monster “Mike” Wazowski​ has one bulging eye, no nose, lips or ears, but his mouth shape is recognizably human.

As animated characters descend down the imagery ladder from realistic to stylized, the design of almost every facial feature can be highly-original and still depict an emotionally-believable creature: head shapes can morph into monsters, robots or teapots; noses can be replaced by a snout or a ball; eyebrows can disappear or hover above the head; eyes can be reduced from two to one… It’s not terribly difficult to create a full range of expressions without an eyebrow, or a nose; even eyes can be elongated into towering ovals with tiny irises and still be read coherently.​But mouths are a different story.​

Artists have found far fewer ways to stylize and/or redesign mouths and still keep their characters emotionally effective. As a result, even extremely bizarre character designs often come equipped with realistic mouths, like the long-ago animation technique of superimposing a chattering human mouth on top of a cartoon face.

In the whole history of animation, there have been very few breakthrough substitutes for literal mouth shapes which is why the two Disney “inventions” described here are so interesting. In both cases, the Disney artists created original mouth constructions that can successfully smile, frown, and cry, but are not simple copies of the human equivalent.

Three moods, one beak shape. Note that only the corners of the mouth are modified to express emotion.

By far the most innovative stylized mouth is the Donald beak.Disney animators had the challenge of creating an expressive mouth with an inflexible beak.Their terrific insight was to modify the upper corner of the beak with simple line work to respond to the various expressions; visually, we don't notice that the rest of the beak never changes. (Of course, the expressive eyes complete the emotional clues.)

A "trigger" is a visual cue that a particular expression is in progress, and it turns out that changes to the corners of the mouth are a very effective trigger for smiles, frowns, and crying.It seems quite likely that our perceptual apparatus is biased to assign much more weight to the mouth corners than the mouth middle, particularly with the closed mouth. As a result, this “trick” works like a charm – Donald is the world’s most popular cartoon character, but don't expect to use motion capture to animate a mouth this far from its human counterpart.

The second stylized mouth innovation revolves around teeth. For years, I taught that the display of reflective white teeth against the relative darkness of lips, mouth opening, and skin had evolved to help the open-mouth smile, and its opposite expression, the raised-lip snarl, be readable under all sorts of conditions. So, I thought that the top teeth being visable was critical to recognizing an open-mouthed smile. For example, just look at Aladdin's highly-expressive smile (at left). You can’t miss those pearly whites against Aladdin's darker mouth shape making his emotional state perfectly clear.

A less radical, but no less effective Disney mouth simplification is visible in Donald’s equally celebrated counterpart, Mickey Mouse. With surprising, but appealing, results, Mickey’s smile disposes of his teeth entirely. Never mind that the upper teeth ALWAYS show in an open-mouthed smile, Disney animators proved that the smile can be effectively read without any white display at all, provided that the signature "bow" shape is present. There seems no loss at all in clarity or intensity, and the world is equally smitten with the many toothless Disney characters who came after Mickey, like Bambi, Dumbo, and the seven Dwarfs.

Inspiration for Mickey Mouse's smile?

Mickey, Dumbo and Doc all display charming toothless smiles.

The most innovative animators can invent non-anatomical feature shapes that effectively cue our emotional responses. It's unlikely that artists have exhausted the creative possibilities. The challenge remains for animators to create new and original feature substitutes that succeed in pushing our emotional buttons.

Credits: Top - ​Michael “Mike” Wazowski, from "Monsters, Inc.," 2001, produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Middle: Aladdin from "Aladdin," 1992, produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures; Margot, "cover girl" on 2017 ASPCA calendar, photographer unknown. Bottom: Mickey Mouse, 1928, created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at the Walt Disney Studios; Jumbo, Jr. nicknamed Dumbo from "Dumbo," 1941, produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures; and, Doc from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," 1937, produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures.

Leave a Reply.

So many faces. So many ways to express emotions. Faigin examines facial expressions in movie stills, cartoons, fine art, illustrations and photographs and shares his insightful analyses in his monthly blog.

​SUBSCRIBE: To receive an email notice of new Faigin Face Blog posts, please use the on-line Contact Form.